Good morning. The weather is continuing a cool trend. It’s 59o but if you have on a jacket, we can still sit out on the glider. The prediction is for warmer weather again this weekend. Let me tell you what’s going on.

I very seldom dream, or at least I very seldom remember any dreams. Last night I had a very vivid dream and woke up quite upset. I dreamed I discovered my ex, while we were still married, in, to put it nicely, a compromising position with another woman. She then insulted me with an unmentionable hand gesture when I confronted them.

What upset me was the feelings of betrayal I was experiencing. I was actually experiencing them deep in the core of my chest as I dreamed. They were much deeper than I ever remember feeling when I was actually going through my divorce experience. A confrontation like that never happened in real life so I was not remembering history.

Betrayal trauma is a response to extreme anger. Fear and anger are the two sides to the fight-flight response, and as such are our strongest and most basic psychological emotions. When I am in an emotional situation, I freeze. I do not fight nor do I have an urge to run.

I have a very difficult time displaying any anger. My husband had a very easy time threatening me with his outbursts…or attacking me verbally or physically. The more angry he got, the more I retreated. While I was going through my divorce, others would get mad at him for me since I couldn’t get mad myself.

My husband committed adultery. I would not doubt that he was unfaithful to me not only while we were dating (he admitted to being with a prostitute) but also shortly after our wedding. A traveling salesman who hangs out in bars, even when he is in his home town, has ample temptations and opportunities. Not only did he have all the qualities of an alcoholic, he, in my opinion, was a sexual addict as well. Now as long as I was the center of his addiction, it didn’t bother me. It was when I began to lose trust in him, like I did in April following our January wedding, that I knew I was in for a long, lonely ride.

We had been married less than three years when he was transferred a third time and we moved to this state. He said something a couple of times that I should have confronted him with, but I let slide. He mentioned being happy to move here because Texas was a no-fault state if a couple divorced. He said it in a way that on the surface appeared to be teasing, but looking back I think in reality he was probably telling the truth. I was very uninformed and unknowledgeable about divorce so I really didn’t say anything. It didn’t occur to me to think that he was actually contemplating divorce. By that time we already had a son. I thought we were a family…troubled, but still a family.

No-fault divorceis a divorce in which the dissolution of a marriage requires neither a showing of wrong-doing of either party nor any evidentiary proceedings at all. Laws providing for no-fault divorce allow a family court to grant a divorce in response to a petition by either party to the marriage, without requiring the petitioner to provide evidence that the respondent has committed a breach of the marital contract. Laws providing for no-fault divorce also limit the potential legal defenses of a respondent who would prefer to remain married.

No fault divorce just lets either party say, “See ya,” without having to even attempt to work things out. I don’t think I would ever have filed for divorce. I grew up without a mother. For that reason, I was adamant that my son would not have to grow up without his father. That in itself was not reality because in real life my ex left the house on Monday morning and didn’t return until Thursday night. My son had very little contact with his father anyway. Towards the end, he didn’t return until Friday. I called the airport one time and talked to security. They keep track of cars that are in their lots for several days. It was Thursday night and my ex’s car was no longer in the parking lot. He had told me he would have to stay another night and would be back on Friday.

Instead of getting mad, I just let myself turn and sink more inward. I realized the truth and chose not to deal with it. My life long pattern was depression so it felt very familiar to me. The more the anger turned in, the more I handled it by doing less and eating more. It was a vicious no win situation. He was drinking and I was eating. Only because God was with me did it not end in a violent disaster. A few months before the end, he had come home even more drunk than usual and I found myself on the floor with his hands around my neck choking me. I was ready to let him kill me, but at the last second, I could not do that to my beloved six year old son. My cousin happened to be visiting us. I called out and that seemed to break my ex’s rage. He let go.

Later I found out that my cousin had not even heard me, but my action was enough to diffuse the situation.

After over twenty years I am puzzled as to why such a vivid dream would be occuring now. Earlier that evening I had been in a philosophy class that I’m taking called “Lessons in Truth”. As we discussed the material, I discovered that much of what we had covered in the first two lessons, I already tried to incorporate into my life as I was growing up. I was learning that my beliefs had put me much further along my spiritual path than I could ever have guessed.

We discussed the idea that all suffering is the result of believing ourselves to be in bondage to “all things of the flesh”. We have a choice of remaining in that level or growing through various stages to a spiritual understanding that we know we are one with God and are free from all suffering. Now I know this is pretty heavy stuff and I’ll not go into it any further.

What I realized during the class and as we all chatted afterwards was that I was feeling a sense of what I had not felt in decades. That was a sense of joy! I was feeling trully happy. S &*T! I was FEELING. That in itself is something I don’t often allow myself to do…non-chalant soul that I am.

Since I had brought up joy and opened the space where I carefully control all my feelings, it also allowed me to bring up other feelings. Stuff I had never allowed myself to handle. By having these feelings come to me in a dream, I was able to recognize them for what they were, acknowledge them, FEEL them, and then release them in a rush of liberty of allowing them to leave.

This class has eight more sessions. Eight more lessons. If all of them are this powerful, I’m wondering where I will be by the middle of November. It should be very interesting. Namaste. Attic Annie